On October 24, the State Administration for Market Regulation issued a recall notice. The notice indicated that due to manufacturing issues, the internal electronic components of the 48V belt-start generator inverter may become poorly connected to the printed circuit board after prolonged use, causing the 48V start generator to stop supplying power. In extreme cases, this could result in battery depletion and loss of power, posing a safety risk. As a result, starting from today, FAW-Volkswagen Automotive Co., Ltd. is recalling certain imported Audi A7, A8L, Q7, Q8, RS6, RS7, RSQ8, S6, S7, S8, A6 Allroad vehicles produced between February 3, 2022, and December 4, 2023, totaling 20,277 units; and certain domestically produced Audi A6L vehicles manufactured between June 3, 2021, and November 21, 2023, totaling 2,848 units.
To address this defect, FAW-Volkswagen Automotive Co., Ltd. will authorize Audi dealerships to inspect the software version of the start generator in the affected vehicles, and replace the start generators with the optimized version for free, eliminating the safety hazard. If some vehicles have already had the optimized start generators replaced previously, they will not need to undergo replacement again during this recall.
It is important to note that this recall is an expansion of the recall activity announced on December 20, 2024, for the same defect. In December of last year, FAW-Volkswagen Automotive Co., Ltd. recalled certain imported Audi A7, A8L, Q7, Q8, RS6, RS7, RSQ8, S6, S7, S8, A6 Allroad vehicles produced between January 2, 2018, and January 23, 2023, totaling 113,749 units; and certain domestically produced Audi A6L vehicles manufactured between November 1, 2018, and February 16, 2023, totaling 23,011 units.
In total, FAW-Volkswagen has now recalled 23,125 Audi vehicles. Most of the recalled models are imported Audi vehicles, including the A7, A8L, Q7, Q8, RS6, RS7, RSQ8, S6, S7, S8, and A6 Allroad, while only the Audi A6L from the domestic production line is involved.
The Audi A6L is a model developed by FAW-Volkswagen Audi on the basis of the German new A6, and it can be considered a successor to the A6. It was the first Audi model introduced to the Chinese market, with its predecessor being the third-generation Audi 100 (C3) that arrived in 1988. In April 2005, FAW-Volkswagen introduced the third-generation Audi A6 (C6) to domestic production, and the domestic version was named the extended A6L. However, the allroad model with the Quattro all-wheel-drive system and Audi’s latest adaptive suspension was not introduced in China. In 2011, at the North American International Auto Show, Audi launched the fourth-generation A6 model. The next year, in February, the new Audi A6L was launched with a price range of 383,000 to 742,600 yuan.
The current version of the FAW-Volkswagen Audi A6L was launched in China in January 2019, and the mid-term facelift of the eighth-generation model was introduced in August 2022, with prices ranging from 427,900 to 656,800 yuan. It is worth mentioning that the new generation Audi A6L has already completed its vehicle declaration in the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and will be launched in 2026. As the successor model, the new car is built on a brand-new fuel vehicle platform, PPC, with significant exterior design changes, a length increase of 92 mm, and a wheelbase increase of 42 mm. The powertrain will continue to feature a 2.0T engine.
